PHH first-quarter earningsPHH Corp. Chief Financial...

BUSINESS DIGEST

August 20, 1992

PHH first-quarter earnings

PHH Corp. Chief Financial Officer Roy A. Meierhenry said yesterday that he is "very comfortable" with analysts' estimates that the company earned 70 to 75 cents a share in the fiscal first quarter, which ended July 31.

"We should be at the upper end of that range," Mr. Meierhenry told Dow Jones News Service. PHH earned $11.2 million, or 66 cents a share, in the year-ago first quarter. The Hunt Valley-based company is scheduled to report its fiscal 1993 first-quarter results Monday.

Fla. deal a loss for Westinghouse

In its third real estate setback in southern Florida in recent weeks, Westinghouse Credit Corp. will lose millions of dollars on a bankrupt Florida Keys fishing resort frequented by President Bush, a company spokesman said.

The Pittsburgh lender, a unit of Westinghouse Electric Corp., lost $49 million on the sales of the Colonnade hotel and office complex in Coral Gables and the Headway Office Park in Fort Lauderdale.

Japanese companies to cut jobs

Two major Japanese electronics companies are planning to reduce personnel costs in an effort to cope with sluggish sales at home and abroad, officials and news reports said yesterday.

Oki Electric Industry Co. said its group of companies will cut staffing by 7 percent, or about 2,000 workers, by by March 1995.

Meanwhile, the public television station NHK, quoting unidentified company officials, said Hitachi Ltd. has proposed to its trade union to lay off about 2,200 workers at plants near Tokyo for two days each in September and October.

Ford cuts British output

Ford Motor Co. Ltd., Britain's largest automaker, is putting thousands of production workers on a part-time schedule as it cuts output in response to a sales slump.

Ford said it will put 2,000 workers on a three-day week at its Dagenham plant in Essex, which makes Fiesta cars and Courier vans. Ford will put 1,000 workers on a four-day week at its Southampton plant, which makes Transit vans.

Fukutake buying into Berlitz

Berlitz International Inc., the language instruction and translation company formerly controlled by the late Robert Maxwell's Macmillan publishing unit, said yesterday that it had signed an agreement to sell a 67 percent stake to Fukutake Publishing Co.